self portraiture

To what extent can I take self portrait photographs that challenge and push the boundaries of taste?

Pich Urdaneta

Marcel Van der Vlugt

Meg Wachter

Pich Urdaneta

Pich Urdaneta is an Venezuelan photographer who mostly photographs people in different environments with out of the ordinary objects with in a studio, he has done a series of photographs to depict the relaEonship that people have between food. In those photographs he has the models faces covered in different food items some that could be found in the fridge and some that are very disgusEng but are edible. For the ‘the fridge’ series he quotes ‘; we are the same… we are food’ he is comparing us to nature and that we are in the food chain even though we are at the top there are sEll animals and even humans that eat human flesh.

His photographs have a plain background and are very well lit to show off the maximum effect and detail, the models are different shapes and sizes which shows that there is no excepEon we are sEll part of the food chain.

I have been inspired by Urdaneta’s photographs and how focused they are on just the model with food that I have decided to try and achieve similar simplicity with a twist by photographing the images in front of different backgrounds and then ediEng them to over exaggerate the key points that are disgusEng to get a stronger response from the viewers.

I will try different Photoshop techniques to achieve gruesome photographs that challenge the viewers comfort levels

EvaluaEon

AQer I have taken and edited photographs with different food items on my face to try and get a reacEon from the viewer , I realized that I need to go and explore different objects on face to get different reacEons. Layering the photographs created a new portrait that looked even more disgusEng than before. I think that making the photographs highly contrasted and layered allowed me to achieve a beSer effect.

I also noEced that the portraits like more scary and gruesome when they were in black and white rather than in colour. That’s why my developmental portraits are all in black and white.

I think I made the photographs have the similar atmosphere to the photographer I was inspired by who is Pich Urdanet, in some pf my photographs I have kept them in coloured and just lightly edited the skin to make it look flawless and so that all the focus of the viewer would be on the food that’s on my face.

If I was to do the same set of photographs again I think I would take more Eme with selecEng my foods and also I would have done my make up to compliment the food rather than just having minimalisEc make up. I think that if the make up was done to match the food the photographs would have turned out more interesEng and each thing would have complimented each other perfectly.

Robert Mapplethorpe Ren Hang

Nan Goldin Joshua Hoffine

Photographer: unknown Title : save the children

Andres Serrano, Fatal MeningiEs, 1992,

Joshua Hoffine Joshua Hoffile quotes” horror allows us to express repressed feelings ,such as terror and rage. Horror constructs an environment where these taboo feelings are sancEoned” -­‐ interview with Sublime Rush 2008 “ Horror films are modern fairytales” -­‐ interview with Whiskey Greg,2009

Hoffile hid his horror photographs for years and conEnued doing wedding photographs and CD covers. In his horror series he explored childhood fears and how they van be illustrated in an innovaEve and unique way. Hoffile in some of his photographs reenacts the scenes from childhood stories and fairytales, however some of the photographs move away from childhood fears and looks at teenagers and adults fears because they are more graphical and they have no childhood symbolism.

Hoffine’s photographs appear to be extra clean and everything is in its place I get the feeling hat even the emoEon is staged, it doesn't’t look natural but fake. I think that the subject maSer has a horror impact on the viewer however the models expressions could be less fake. The vibrant colours of all the images suggests to me that the monsters in the images are the ones that live under the bed, they are always there but out of sight and the child or adult can get on with their life as normal even though the fear could come back when ever it pleases it creeps up to the people when they least expect it .

I will try to make my photographs clean and focused on t he horror part, make it the main focus of the photograph.

However I will try to use less bright and a smaller range of colours because I believe that the very colourful photographs in Joshua Hoffile’s series don’t live up to the expectaEons.

Ren Hang

Ren Hang is a photographer, poet and a magazine editor. His work has been displayed widely in china and other countries around the world. Hang’s photography style is unusual and shocking because of his chosen object maSer. His photography challenges the boundaries of taste and boundaries in generaEons because the new generaEon may see his photographs as art, however the older generaEon may see it as inappropriate and say that it shouldn't’t be displayed or classed as art. I think that Hang photographs things that are unusual and disturbing but, they are also things that everyone is familiar with.

This means that it shouldn't’t be a surprise to us the viewers seeing pictures of those things.

Hang also combines body parts and other everyday objects to try ad achieve a shock reacEon from the viewer.

I have been inspired to create my own disgusEng photographs by how Hang has achieved such shocking photographs in such a simple way. I will; try and replicate that by combining photographs of different portraits with different or similar subject maSer to create something that is familiar but also disgusEng and doesn’t look eye pleasing and tasteful.

EvaluaEon

For my first set I used food to create gruesome looking self portraits, in this set I took a more developed approach by having a costume and a theme with contact lenses that made the look more scary. I was inspired by a set called ‘childhood fears’ by Joshua Hoffine. Hoffine explored different fears that children grew up with and then he went on exploring adult fears. I was amazed with the graphic photographs that he created while sEll having a normal everyday scene.

This set of photographs relate to the fear of the undead which most people are scared off that’s why I think that photographs are stronger and are more symbolic than the first set with more development and though that is behind the idea.

Even though I think these photographs were a success I think that if I had more Eme and more props I would have aSempted to do more fears that adults may have, because I think there are more unexplored fears that are unusual and sEll scary.

CrisEna Otero capEvates us with these zoomed-­‐in self-­‐portraits.

Using fruit as her inspiraEon in this series enEtled Tuh Fruh,

Caryn Drexl’ kiss of death’

Ryan Michael Kelly ‘miss behave’

Alex Lucka

Dimtri daniloff

CrisEna Otero

CrisEna Otero has amazed viewers with zoomed-­‐in self-­‐portraits. Using fruit as her inspiraEon in this series enEtled Tuh Fruh. This series of photographs is based on make up and ordinary and tropical fruit, the colours that she uses with the make up helps bring out the over all colour of the fruit making it more intense and vibrant. She has taken very close up portraits f mainly eyes and mouth. With a plain background and in a well lit studio. The photographs look flawless and nothing appears to be out of place. Otero’s photographs are very bright, happy and cheerful . The portraits themselves may seem too perfect for some people and wouldn’t be what they like even though that the subject maSer is very unusual and work well with the pale flawless skin. The viewers may mistake this as a computer painEng and not a photograph

I like how perfect the photograph looks I will try to use sweets and crystals to try and create something that looks so perfect and flawless. I also like the way the colour of the fruit is one of the main focuses of the photograph.

Dimitri Daniloff

Damiloff was originally aspiring to be a mathemaEcian, however when he was 26 years old he got a camera as a giQ and from then on his intuiEon has taken over and he has become a photographer with a wide range of focus points from magazine adverEsement and editorials to mostly photo edited photography.’’ My main inspira+on comes from my intui+on. I just need to do what I do. I like to mix new graphic technology with my obsessions. I like to work around the idea of body mo+on / sculpture the confusion between male and female and hidden weaknesses.’’

Damiloff in a lot of his photographs uses models just as if they were mannequins that could be posiEoned in any way that he thinks is best. A few of his photography projects have an atmospheric feeling of everything being fake and plasEc that gives an inorganic feel to it. Those photographs appear dead and without any model emoEon which also makes the photographs cold and in some ways dull. In some of his work he highlights the body conscious areas of the model by making it the focus of aSenEon by adding different things on to it like gliSer or confeh.

I want to try and recreate the similar feeling of fake posiEoned photographs where my portraits don’t look natural and are to edited. I will use crystals to exaggerate the areas of my face that I consider to be not perfect and by adding crystals make them more beauEful even though I had to add to the natural beauty to make it look nicer than they were before.

EvaluaEon

I have explored different objects on my face to enhance the atmosphere of my portraits. I also wanted to try and surprise

the viewers by pushing the boundaries of taste from the disgusEng site to the too perfect and sweet side. I was inspired by different portrait photographers and their techniques , however I wanted to explore different camera sehngs and lighEng to make my photographs more interesEng and unusual.

AQer I have done the food on my face I decided to explore different objects that would make the photographs appear more scary and that also explored fear. I was inspired to explore the fear factor by the photographer Joshua Hoffine, who had done numerous series on different fears that children and adults have. I liked how he placed the scary factor in everyday places that most people would think twice about it being associated with that parEcular fear. I think that my zombie like portraits have achieved a similar feel to Hoffine’s photographs.

AQer all the disgusEng photographs I decided to show the too perfect side where everything was sweet and covered in preSy diamonds and crystals. I was inspired to do the fruit portraits by CrisEna Otero Who did the tuh fruh self portriats. I liked the colourful contrast between her make up and the fruit that she was using, I decided to try and replicate that with different kinds of colourful sweets but without the make up because I wanted my face to be a plain canvas for the different sweets. I think that I should have added just a bit of make up to match the sweets because in some photographs that would have complimented the colour of the different sweets.

My last set of portrait photographs were with small crystals struck around my face to bring out my strongest features such as the jawline , lips and eyes and areas that im not comfortable in highlighEng I wanted to try and match the photographs of Dimitri Daniloff who liked exploring different areas of the human body and show off the hidden weaknesses within the model. I think that the small crystals worked well to aSract aSenEon to areas of the face that some people hide behind make up, the crystals expose the true beauty because they were applied in those places to aSracted aSenEon to the areas I'm not comfortable in highlighEng. I think that the photograohs turned out very well and I like the effect that I achieved using photoshop to enhance the colours of the photographs to bring out the crystals and make them stand out more.

When I have explored both sides of portraits the disgusEng and too perfect sides I have come to a conclusion that manipulaEon the face with things that people don’t like such as porridge, oil will make them react to it more stronger compared to if the face was covered in sweets. Also when I made my face into something that most people are scared off their reacEon is also stronger. However the zombie look didn’t shock them as much as food therefore I think that to get a reacEon from a viewer food should be used in an unusual way.